Alisa Keyser

​My research is broadly focused on how ecosystems respond to disturbance and climate change. My dissertation research focused on understanding how topography, vegetation, and climate affect the risk of high severity fire in the western United States. I developed statistical models to predict both occurrence and size of high severity fire for western US forests. I followed this work with a project to downscale predictions of fire severity to a scale relevant to sensitive species populations. I am currently linking empirical data and modeling to inform management decisions aimed at improving ecosystem resilience to changing disturbance and climate regimes.

Selected Publications:Keyser, AR and AL Westerling. 2017. Climate drives inter-annual variability in probability of high severity fire occurrence in the western United States. Environmental Research Letters. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa6b10